'Net is closing around' Shrien Dewani, court hears

The “net is closing” around a British businessman accused of killing his wife
on honeymoon after police obtained evidence of his black market money deals
and meetings with the self-confessed killer, a court heard.

Anni Dewani (left) and Shrien DewaniPhoto: GEOFF PUGH

By John Bingham, and Richard Savill

7:00AM GMT 11 Dec 2010

Shrien Dewani who is facing extradition to South Africa over the murder of his wife, Anni, was yesterday released from prison by a senior judge after his family agreed to put up £250,000 bail.

But a hearing at the High Court in London was told that police in the country are convinced there is now a “powerful” case against him.

The 30-year-old care home boss from Bristol is accused of hiring a gang of hitmen to have his newlywed wife shot dead in a staged carjacking.

Mrs Dewani, 28, was abducted and killed by two men as the couple were driven through a crime-ridden township in Cape Town after a night out on Nov 13.

Mr Dewani and Zola Tongo, the driver of the vehicle, were thrown out of the vehicle before the murder.

Tongo has since pleaded guilty to murder, claiming Mr Dewani asked him to arrange the killing.

Ben Watson, for the South African government, told Mr Justice Ouseley yesterday that CCTV from the five-star hotel in which Mr Dewani stayed showed him having a series of meetings with Tongo, without his wife, in the 24 hours before the killing.

Footage is also said to show him “surreptitiously” handing him a package of cash three days after the murder.

He also told the court that Mr Dewani and the driver had taken a trip to a black market currency exchange in the “back streets” of Cape Town on the morning before the killing.

Staff at the shop have confirmed to police that he exchanged $1,500 into South African Rand without having to show his passport, he said.

The figure is equivalent to the amount that members of the gang would later claim they had been paid for the “hit”.

The court was told the bundle of US dollars represented a possible “dirty fund” to pay off his wife’s killers without detection.

Mr Watson said it appeared to be separate to the £1,000 Sterling Mr Dewani withdrew from cash machines in the country using his Mastercard in the days before the killing.

“The evidence suggests there was a second source of funds that Mr Dewani sought out that has, in our submission, all the hallmarks of an illegitimate transaction,” he said.

He also outlined how CCTV footage showed Mr Dewani meeting Tongo privately in his car outside the hotel twice on the night before the killing – when Tongo claims Mr Dewani asked him to hire hitmen to kill his wife.

There was also a short telephone call between the two men that evening followed by the trip to the black market currency exchange the next day, he said.

He added that other key features of the case “that don’t go away” include questions over the decision to take the a drive through a dangerous township late at night, the fact that Mr Dewani was unharmed and that his wife was not sexually assaulted before her murder.

Three days after the killing there was also a cash payment to Tongo of Rand 1,000 (£90) which he said could amount to payment for his role, he said.

“My Lord, We say that the net is closing and while Mr Dewani may have before been willing to hand himself in he may have strong reasons why he would not now,” Mr Watson said.

But Clare Montgomery QC, for Mr Dewani, dismissed the claims against him as “absurd”.

She said it was impossible that he could have arrived at Cape Town airport, picked up a taxi and recruited the driver as an assassin within the space of little more than an hour.

“That would be improbable even fro an experienced criminal, for a grammar school boy with no experience of South Africa it is unlikely in the extreme.”

But the judge agreed to free Mr Dewani on bail with strict conditions including wearing an electronic tag and double curfew confining to his parents’ home at night and during the middle of the day.

He said there was little risk that Mr Dewani would try to flee.

“The tragic and terrible circumstances of the murder of his wife has meant that his is a very well known face and it would be difficult for him were he to seek to depart from the United Kingdom or go underground in it successfully to maintain his location in hiding,” he said.